


Deadly Wound

by Scarlet_Claws



Category: Original Work
Genre: Banter, Demons, Fluff, Kissing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:42:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26268937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scarlet_Claws/pseuds/Scarlet_Claws
Summary: When Breza hears that Saltig was hurt, he drops everything to check if he is okay. They might be demons but they still have feelings, damnit!
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was a commission for a friend that wished to remain anonymous. I love the characters to bits but they don't belong to me!

Breza threw the curtain to the side and stepped into the room. There was Saltig, the idiot himself, on a couch, Boris, his loyal riding wolf taking a nap, and two servants that rose their heads in surprise at his entry.

“Out,” said Breza to the latter.

The two of them, a female and a male demon, glanced at each other. While Breza cold expression elicited fear in them, they knew that he was not officially above them. And while Breza’s position as a renowned assassin was the worse-kept secret, it did not guarantee their obedience. Especially since their true superior, Saltig himself, happened to be sitting right there.

Saltig dismissed them with a wave of his hand when they looked his way. They bowed wordlessly and retreated out of the room through a servant’s door half-tucked under a tapestry.

“Breza,” said Saltig. “I thought you were stationed in Aldburg?”

“I _was_ ,” snapped Breza, “until a certain someone went to impale himself on an archangel’s thunderspear.”

“I did not do that.” Saltig paused. “Not on purpose. I didn’t know there would be an _archangel_ at Merphina.”

“You mean where you, a _demon general_ , appeared three times in a row to harass angel troupes?” Breza placed his hands on his hips. “No _shit_.”

“Well, said like that...”

“Said like _what_? Like anyone with half a brain?”

Breza must have screamed a little louder than he intended because Boris rolled over and rose a sleepy eyelid. The wolf was only checking if his master was in no mortal danger. Once he saw who it was, he promptly rolled over and went right back to his nap.

Saltig leaned to the side to pet the impressive mound of his wolf’s shoulders. Across his chest, the Z-shaped burn of his wound was red and raw, a sharp contrast to his greyish skin. Tunderspears were no jokes, even for the impressive regenerative abilities of a demon general.

“By the way, why did you come back?” asked Saltig.

Breza grabbed the rag one of the servants had been using to clean the wound and was this close to throwing it Saltig’s face. The latter rose his arm to protect himself.

“I was just asking!” said Saltig. “You don’t need to get so fussy.”

“You ask me why?” said Breza. He lowered his weapon with a sigh. “He’s asking me why I rushed back when I heard he was hurt. Boris, your master is hopeless.”

Boris huffed. That was all old news to him.

Saltig just looked confused.

“Forget it,” said Breza. He sat down on a stool in front of the sofa and soaked his rag in the basin of warm water. Some herbs and a spell had been mixed in it to turn it into a disinfectant. “Let me see that.”

“That’s not a job for you.” Saltig frowned. “Let me call the servants back.”

He looked like he was about to get up, so Breza placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him down. Saltig obeyed.

“Well, I suppose that since you’re here, you might as well do that,” said Saltig. “Even if that’s not your job.”

“Then that will make two of us not doing our jobs properly.”

Breza swiped over Saltig’s chest lightly. The servants had probably already done most of the work anyway. All that would be left to do was get a bandage on him. He would probably be fine the next day. And Breza had abandoned his mission for that...

“I don’t get it,” said Saltig. “When did I not do my job properly?”

“When you decided that it was worth it to get wounded for stupid reasons.”

“I was defending my men. The hit would have killed any other.”

“And it wouldn’t have killed you?”

“It didn’t.”

“But what if it _did_?”

“Then I’d be dead.”

“And then what do we do? What do your men do? ‘Then I’d be dead.’ You’re a big, fucking idiot, you know that, right?”

Saltig finally seemed to understand where this was leading. He looked at Breza with wide eyes, then started to snicker. Breza gave him the stink eye. He was still mad at him.

“You’re worried about me,” said Saltig.

“How could I not?”

“That’s what it’s about.”

“Of course that’s what it’s about.”

“So... does that mean that I can kiss you?”

Breza rolled his eyes.

“I really want to,” said Saltig.

“Fine.”

The other leaned in. Their lips met once, chastely, before Breza pulled away. There was a blush on his pale cheeks.

“What am _I_ to do if you die?” said Breza. His voice was a lot softer now, almost a whisper. Their faces were close anyway. “One day you could just... disappear. And I wouldn’t even have been there.”

“That’s just our jobs. My place is on the battlefield and yours is in the bedroom.”

There was a silence. Saltig realized that didn’t come out quite as he wanted it to.

“I mean, in the bedroom killing people,” he said. “With your knife. Isn’t that how you do it? When they are sleeping?”

“You’re better at kissing than talking, Saltig.”

“Then why don’t you kiss me again?”

Breza rolled his eyes and did just that. Saltig tried to pull Breza close to his chest (and Breza resisted it, remembering that he had an open wound.) They both closed their eyes. Breza grabbed one of Saltig’s horns to make his head lean on the side and their tongues mingled.

It was Saltig that pulled away first, seemingly just to admire him.

“Since you’re here, does that mean that you will be staying?” asked Saltig.

“If I was reasonable, I’d go back as soon as I can. I might be needed.”

“I could order you to stay.”

“You could.” Breza smiled cheekily. “Or I could say fuck it and stay anyway. After all, you did just survive a deadly wound. You need someone to take care of you and see that you survive the night.”

Saltig started to laugh. He sounded like a complete love-struck cretin and Breza only loved him more for it. He had to get a bandage on him as soon as possible though, so they could start doing other, more interesting things.


	2. Chapter 2

It took Saltig a moment and the intense questioning of certain servants in possession of certain secrets to find the place. He might be a renowned general, there were still certain secrets that were kept out of his direct line of sight, if only for symbolic reasons. He wasn’t supposed to get involved with the private assassin of the king.

But he was involved. And worried.

The last few turns in the underground tunnels were tricky, yet he didn’t expect to be guided there by a child demon dressed in rags. For that, and so that he wouldn’t be recognized, he hid his mane of dense dark hair under a hood and the upper part of his face under a mask. They didn’t meet anyone – or at least, they didn’t meet anyone that made themselves known.

The assassin’s quarters were behind a door that was almost invisible, standing as it was in a dark hallway in the shadows. It was a lot darker and dustier than he expected, too, almost as if it was a secret lair, although it barely bothered him. Not when he had other, more urgent matters on his mind.

A hooded figure with a candle came to meet them.

“My lord,” came a trembling, raspy male voice from under the large hood. He sounded as if his vocal cords had been sanded down to mere stumps. “He is resting. I am afraid that he might not even be aware of his surroundings at the moment.”

“Lead me to him anyway,” said Saltig.

The hooded man bowed briefly, then brought him through more obscure hallway. This was where Breza had learned his craft? Was this what his life truly like? Dark, cramped spaces, spider webs, reduced to scurrying in the castle depth like a rat?

Saltig didn’t like it.

He liked it even less when he came upon the room in which Breza had been placed. There was his lover, lying still on a bed, his cheeks pale enough to take on the colouration of a deadman. Saltig’s heart sunk in his chest when he believed, for a fraction of a second, that he might be dead. He then approached Breza and noticed that his eyes were still moving behind their lids as he fell prey to feverish dreams.

There was a stool near the bed. Saltig sat down, bringing his face closer to the one of his beloved.

“Breza?” he whispered.

“Do not disturb him, my lord. He needs all the rest he can get.”

Saltig looked at Breza’s face for a while in silence. He didn’t know what to think. He didn’t know how to feel. He wanted to scream and shake him out of it, see him breathe normally and move and _smile_ again, but he knew that it might kill him.

That this might be the last time he saw Breza alive.

He stood up, unable to look at him any more, and turned to the man that had brought him there. In the dim light of his candle, his face was visible, an old face riddled with scars and sickness, peering at him with his one eye and one empty socket. The vision was brief before the elder lowered his head once more, hiding out of politeness probably.

“We can discuss in the hallways,” he said.

Saltig followed him there and stood with him in the darkness, waiting, worried.

“We must wait and see now, my lord,” said the hooded man. “He has a built resistance to poisons but this time he has taken a very high dose.”

“Is there really nothing you can’t do? No antidote for that poison?”

“There is nothing. That is why it was used: while very rare, that poison has no real antidote. He was treated fast enough that most of the side effects have been avoided, but— There is nothing we can do other than wait and see if he survives the night.”

“The night?”

“When the sun rises about the horizon tomorrow, if he’s still breathing, he might have a chance. Might... If he even survives.”

Saltig didn’t cry. He had lost the ability to do so a long time ago. But he could still feel despair – the despair of a life without Breza. Even if their relationship was their most well-guarded secret, even with everything that was between them, he couldn’t bear the thought.

“I will not lie to you, my lord, and tell you that the situation was not dire,” said the man. He paused. Seemed to think about it. Then, in a voice that was even lower than his usual one: “He did it for you, my lord.”

“What?”

“He must have known that the drink was poisoned when he took it out of your hand. A trained assassin doesn’t carelessly consume drinks and food as he did. Surely you must understand that, if it was in your drink, then it was for you.”

“But why didn’t he warn me?”

“In the middle of a crowd? During dinner? He could have, maybe, but it was risky.” A pause. “By some miracle, you could ask that yourself if he gets better.”

“I will.”

The hooded man rose his head briefly, flashing him a quick, sad smile. Saltig refused to give in to despair. He had lost many that were dear to him during his lifetime of warfare, he knew that he had reasons to be bitter, but he wouldn’t lose Breza. Or, at least, he wouldn’t believe he was going to until he was sure that he had. Breza was strong. He would overcome the poison.

“If you wish, my lord, I may show you back to a place more suited for someone of your rank.”

“No,” said Saltig. “I will be staying here.”

“As you wish.”

Saltig went back to Breza’s side, in the small dark room with its dingy bed and dying candle, sitting on a stool that creaked under his weight. Was this the sort of place Breza had grown up in? Removed from sight, where he could grow into becoming the assassin he had become? And then the king had decided to bring Breza into the spotlight, making him into one of his personal consorts. They would have never met otherwise and, as much as Saltig despised the king for enjoying openly Breza’s company when they still had to meet in secret, he was grateful for this turn of events.

Until now.

Why did Breza steal his drink instead of warning him? Saltig had only looked away for one second and the next his lover was falling in his arms, dying. Was Breza dying because of Saltig?

The pale demon laid on the sheets, unmoving, eyes closed. In the end, he had come back where he belonged, in the shadows. And Saltig’s place wasn’t there with him, it was upstairs, in the castle, standing in the light, yet he was going to stay. If Breza drew his last breath here... then Saltig would stay right there with him when he did.

Saltig had slept in many weird and uncomfortable positions in his life but never had he rested so fitfully than he had that night. He rested his head across Breza’s lap, eventually abandoning the stool to sit with his knees on the ground against the bed. And, even if he closed his eyes, he would never really sleep, or so he thought.

He was awakened by a subtle change in Breza’s breathing. So deep was the silence that it resonated like a clap of thunder. Saltig rose fast enough from his position that stars filled his vision and he had to steady himself on the nightstand.

But when his sight did clear he saw that Breza was staring at him.

“Breza!”

“Hello... my lord,” he said in a strained voice.

Saltig was so relieved. He knew that Breza only called him that ironically, had done so for a while now. If he could make jokes, then that meant that he was going to be fine, right?

“You’re alive—“

“Of course... I am alive... captain obvious.”

“You’re alive.”

Saltig grabbed one of Breza’s pale hands on the sheets and brought it to his lips to kiss its back. And then kiss it again, before he pressed it to his forehead. He was alive.

“Don’t cry,” said Breza.

“I’m not crying.”

Saltig kissed Breza’s hand one last time but didn’t let it go. He was getting lost in the other’s eyes.

“Why did you do it?” Saltig asked after a while. “Why did you drink that wine?”

“Because... if I told you that it was... poisoned... you wouldn’t have been... able to hide... your surprise.”

“I could have.”

Breza rolled his eyes.

“Who?” asked Saltig. “Who did it?”

Breza shook his head.

“Please, tell me.”

“No.”

“Why can’t you?”

“You’ll... kill him, right?”

“I will. I’ll kill him and place his head on this very bed for having almost killed you.”

Breza laughed. It was such a weak, light laugh, like a spider string. Yet, against all odds, a spider string never broke, it always evaded its own destruction as it floated in the breeze, immortal in a sense.

“I would go to war for you,” said Saltig. He kissed Breza’s hand again. “I will. Please, if you know, tell me.”

Breza closed his eyes. For a second, Saltig thought that he had fallen asleep. But then he took a deep breath and said a name.

Saltig felt all the air being chased out of his lungs at once. Yet the shock only subsided for a fraction of a second. It was nothing compared to what he had felt when he had seen Breza unconscious at the party. Nothing at all.

“Why would he do that?” asked Saltig.

“He knows.”

Saltig nodded. Then stood up.

“You’re... an idiot,” said Breza. “I’m not worth it.”

“Yes, you are,” said Saltig. “For you, I’ll become a regicide.”


End file.
